


covered bridge, i scream

by morningsound15



Series: That Luminous Part of You [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Secret Identity, Set after 2x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9477077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningsound15/pseuds/morningsound15
Summary: Alex and Supergirl are close. Like… close close. Like jump in front of a bullet for each other close. Like shout in terror when the other one is in danger close. Like run towards each other at the first sign of injury, like relieved hugging, bodies tight together, eyes soft and concerned close.There’s really only one conclusion to be drawn from this: Alex is in love with Supergirl.Maggie doesn’t like it.(Yes, she told Alex that they should just be friends, told her that that was for the best… and it is for the best. She knows that it is.)(So why does the image of Alex crushing Supergirl in a fierce hug make her stomach turn in on itself?)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after 2x06.
> 
> Some of this story takes place prior to ‘tinfoil words,’ and some of it takes place after. You don’t necessarily have to read the other story to understand this one, but everything will make a lot more sense, as they take place within the same universe. You do have to read the full series to understand the overall story arc (as is true of any series).
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Also follow me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)

Alex won’t look at her. She _knows_ Maggie’s there — how could she _not_ know? — but Alex refuses to look at her.

Maggie sighs as she watches the woman across from her.

Things are weird. Things have been weird ever since…

She shakes her head. Thinking about the kiss doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t do _her_ any good… doesn’t do _either_ of them any good, honestly. It just adds to the confusion and to the anger and to the tension between them. She shouldn’t think about it. They need to be professional, they need to work together, they need to be partners on cases and trust each other if things go south on a mission.

She has to put it behind her. She has to stop thinking about the kiss, about the awkwardness that’s resonated _from_ the kiss, about the implications of it all and the way Alex won’t meet her eyes, about Alex’s lips and how they felt against hers (about Alex’s lips, tight with shame and embarrassment whenever she approaches).

She can ignore it. She _can_. She can be professional about this, can pretend that nothing happened between them if that’s the way Alex wanted to go about it.

She can… things can be normal between them. They can.

She just has to try harder.

But _fuck_ , Alex looks good today. (Maggie doesn’t want to admit that she has a thing for the combat uniform, for a woman dressed in black with a gun holstered on her hip and her shoulders set back in confidence. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she knows it’s true.) Maggie hadn’t even caught any of the fighting — by the time she showed up with a few NCPD squad cars Supergirl had already subdued the underwhelming team of armed robbers — but _still_ , seeing Alex there… she feels like she just sprinted across town. Sometimes it was so hard to _breathe_ , around her.

She shakes herself. _Cut it out, Sawyer,_ a voice in her head growls. _Remember why you shut it down._

Right. Alex… newly coming out… being a baby gay… no one in her family knowing… Right.

All logical reasons to not date her.

(She can still be _attracted_ to her, though. Even if she knows dating Alex is a terrible idea, there’s no way to stop attraction. At least… that’s what she tells herself.)

Maggie clears her throat and pushes her shoulders back, trying to produce at least the impression of calm collectedness. She forces a grin to her lips and approaches Alex, who is fiddling with something in her hand like she doesn’t know what to do with it. She fights to make herself walk as naturally as possible. (But how the hell do you _walk naturally_ and why is she _thinking_ about it now and good God this wasn’t going to go well, was it?)

“Didn’t know the DEO was interested in armed robbery, Danvers,” Maggie quips, her voice remarkably even. (She’s quite proud.)

Alex’s head shoots up, eyes wide and surprised. “Maggie!” She exclaims, shoving whatever she holds in her hands into the pocket of her dark jacket. “Hi, what are you… why are you here?”

Maggie arches an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same question.” She looks at the scene around her. Supergirl stands conferring with several members of the NCPD as uniformed officers drag the groaning and handcuffed men towards a nearby squad car. “Didn’t know this was in your jurisdiction,” she says with a small gesture of the head towards the semi-chaos off to their left.

“Oh…” Alex clears her throat and shifts on her feet, clasping her hands behind her back in the way she does when she’s monumentally uncomfortable. “Right, no they just… _Supergirl_ is in our jurisdiction so it’s sort of… you know… wherever she goes, we go.”

“We?” Maggie knows that she looks unimpressed and disbelieving, but she’s getting the strong suspicion that Alex is lying to her. And Alex — for all of her work as a government official in a covert department that technically does not exist — is a terrible liar.

Maggie scans the crowd around her, and aside from a few bystanders with cellphones, everyone else is NCPD or paramedics in official uniforms. No tall and stoic men in uniform black, no lumbering figures in bulletproof vests carrying heavy firearms and emerging from unmarked vehicles with full military weaponry.

No DEO.

“Where’s the rest of the ‘we’?” She asks, trying to keep her gaze steady on Alex’s face (looking for the hint of untruth… looking for a lie).

“Sorry?” Alex asks, brow furrowed, lip clenched tightly between her own teeth.

Maggie fights against the urge to roll her eyes. “The DEO, Alex. Where are the rest of you? Because you’re certainly the only agent _I_ can see.” She pauses a moment, before continuing, “Unless they’ve all turned invisible and I missed the memo, somehow.”

“Oh no the DEO isn’t… no it’s just me, here.” Alex says, swallowing thickly in the middle of her sentence. Maggie squints her eyes, surveying Alex’s face and trying to read her expression.

Alex clears her throat and gestures around her. “I was with… I was in the neighborhood. Closest responder and all that.” She says with a forced chuckle.

Maggie isn’t buying it, but she can’t figure out _why_ Alex would be lying about this. “ _Right_.” She says, her voice dripping skepticism.

She knows Alex is lying to her but she doesn’t know how to confront her about it, or how to call her on it. Because _why_ would Alex be lying? It doesn’t make sense. It’s a _weird_ thing to feel the need to lie about.

Alex laughs again, but Maggie can tell that there isn’t anything behind it. One of her hands rises to grip at the back of her neck as her eyes focus everywhere except Maggie’s face. “You know Supergirl,” she says with an over exaggerated shrug. “She doesn’t exactly give you enough time to call for backup before she has the problem solved.”

As if summoned by the sound of her own name, the Girl of Steel herself is at Alex’s side before Maggie can so much as blink. She stands next to Alex (not facing her) her back ramrod straight and her chest puffed out — like a gorilla putting on a show of strength. Her eyes, usually soft and calculating, now focus intently on Maggie’s form (and Maggie knows for a moment how it must feel to be on the receiving end of Supergirl’s heat vision).

“Detective Sawyer,” she says with a curt nod, arms folded tightly across her chest in a way that makes her biceps stand out. For one fleeting, weak moment, Maggie is even a little _impressed_ with her. (Having a god staring you down has the tendency to inspire a little awe.)

But Supergirl’s eyes never close, never leave Maggie’s face, and Maggie has to fight against her own human urge to shy away from the intensity of the look. It isn’t fair, battling wits against a being of Supergirl’s caliber. But she isn’t about to admit that.

“Supergirl,” she nods back, trying (perhaps in vain) to keep her heart rate in check. She knows all about those enhanced hearing abilities and she is having none of it. She will not let her body give away her emotions. She never has before and she isn’t starting now.

She is _not_ nervous around this woman, _refuses_ to feel nervous around her, and Supergirl has bravado to spare, but Maggie has some of her own. She has pride. She won’t back down.

It is only a few seconds later that she realizes the three of them have been standing there in silence for several long moments, with Maggie and Supergirl engaged in an intense staring contest that neither seems willing to forfeit.

It doesn’t make sense. Supergirl has never… well, she’s never been exactly _friendly_ , as far as these things go, but she’s at least always been _polite_. And this is especially true when she’s had to deal with human law enforcement. So this new attitude is… unusual.

Today she’s reserved. Cold. Distrustful.

Supergirl is looking at her like she’s a threat; like she’s the _enemy_.

Which confuses Maggie, because what could she have done to—

“ _Supergirl_ ,” Alex’s voice suddenly cuts into the space between them. Maggie blinks, and just like that the look on Supergirl’s face is gone, animosity replaced with only concern as she turns her attention away from Maggie and towards the woman acting as silent observer to their face-off.

Alex’s eyes are wide with… _something_. Something that Maggie can’t read. But she’s looking at Supergirl with significance, communicating with looks and without words. There’s a hard edge to the sides of Alex’s mouth and Maggie just wants to ask what—

“We should really be getting back to the DEO,” Alex says, with a slight tilt of the head that Maggie _knows_ means something covert, something hidden. Her eyes say, _We need to talk_ , and, _Get me out of here,_ and, _Stop doing this._

She tries not to be offended that Alex seems so desperate to get away from her. She tries not to read too much into the interaction between Danvers and Supergirl.

But she’s a detective. It’s sort of her _job_ to read too much into things.

Supergirl nods, her eyes never leaving Alex’s face, like Danvers is the only person in the word who matters in that moment. (It definitely doesn’t bother Maggie.) “Of course,” Supergirl says sincerely. She reaches out and places a hand on Alex’s upper arm and squeezes. Maggie’s eyes widen ever so slightly at the familiarity of the gesture, at the fact that Alex doesn’t pull away or recoil from the touch. Alex isn’t big on physical contact, as Maggie learned after only a few days of working with her. Yet here she is, letting Supergirl comfort her with casual physical contact and actually _relaxing_ into the touch.

(It _definitely_ doesn’t bother Maggie.)

“I’ll meet you back there, okay?” Supergirl ventures, her voice softer than Maggie has ever heard it. Supergirl’s eyes flick to Maggie’s for a fraction of a second, so fast that had Maggie not been watching her intently, she would have missed the look. “Everything’s good here?” She directs her question at Alex, but Maggie can hear the subtle threat in the tightness of her voice, the concern and the defensiveness and the caution. Supergirl is _warning_ her.

Maggie doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like being treated like some sort of contagious disease, like she’s a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and destroy and _hurt_ Alex. She doesn’t like it.

It makes Maggie wonder just how close their relationship is, wonder just how much Supergirl and Danvers speak to each other outside of the missions they work together. She knows they’re friendly, or at least that Supergirl is friends with Alex’s sister, but she didn’t think… for some reason she sort of assumed that their relationship ended when they walked out of the DEO at the end of a long day.

Now, watching them interact, she thinks that perhaps she may have misjudged the whole situation. Because if she isn’t mistaken, this icy freeze-out Supergirl is currently directing her way is a new development (she thinks she would have noticed any burning dislike coming from National City’s only superhero pretty quickly, had it been present the few other times they’ve met). New as in, within-the-last-36-hours new. As in, aftermath-of-the-kiss new.

She’s a detective; it’s her job to read into situations, to piece together clues and unspoken emotions, to solve puzzles and judge people as quickly as possible. And she’s good at her job. She doesn’t have to take many jumps to figure this situation out.

Supergirl is pissed at her because she kissed Danvers.

Alex straightens a bit and gently extracts her arm from Supergirl’s grasp. “Everything’s just fine,” she says, voice even and sure. “I’ll see you back at the DEO.” When Supergirl still seems reluctant to move, Alex huffs out a tiny exasperated (endearing?) breath. “I’m fine. Really.”

Supergirl nods once more, eyes searching Alex’s face momentarily (looking for visible confirmation, Maggie assumes, sharing a charged look and a nonverbal question). She turns and regards Maggie again. “Detective Sawyer,” she says, as politely as is possible for a woman who has just spent the better part of five minutes shooting Maggie death glares.

Maggie just nods back at her but doesn’t say anything. She knows she doesn’t need to. Any words, any prosaicisms she could have come up with would have been fake anyway. (She doesn’t like feeling threatened.)

“I’ll see you soon, Agent Danvers,” Supergirl says again. (Maggie doesn’t get why she needs to say goodbye like _three_ separate times, doesn’t get why Supergirl can’t just take the hint and fuck off, but _whatever_.)

Supergirl looks towards the sky then, leaps, and is off; gone into the wind with nothing but a swooping column of air behind her to let everyone else know where she had been.

Maggie allows her body to relax slightly in the absence of much of the hostile tension. She even laughs, briefly, and attempts to break the ice by saying, “What was all that about, then?”

Alex — rather than looking relieved in the wake of Supergirl’s departure — only looks tenser. “She’s just…” a pause, like she’s weighing her words carefully, “concerned.”

There it is again; that quiet tone of voice that Maggie’s never heard Alex use except with—

“Concerned about _you_?” Maggie asks, but it comes out much more accusatory than she would have liked, and she cringes inwardly at the harsh bite to the words.

Alex apparently doesn’t miss it either.

She whips around on Maggie, eyes bright and face dark with anger. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Maggie takes a deep breath and closes her eyes and prays that she won’t make this any worse, that she hasn’t _already_ made it worse. “No that isn’t… that’s not what I meant.”

Alex huffs. “What, so… so _no one_ is allowed to be concerned about me now, is that it?”

“ _No_ , Alex, it isn’t that at all. It’s just… I mean she’s _Supergirl_ , I would think she—”

“Just because she’s an _alien_ doesn’t mean she doesn’t have _feelings_ , Maggie.”

Maggie can’t even believe where this conversation has ended up. Fighting about alien feelings in the middle of a crowded street in the wake of an armed robbery, with police lights flashing all around them, is _not_ exactly how she anticipated her first full conversation with Alex (in several days, mind you) going.

She can’t understand why she seems to just make all of it so much _worse_.

She tries again, almost desperate to rectify the situation, “Alex you _know_ that that isn’t what I was saying. Not at all.” A beat, a pause between them. “I’m sorry if I offended you. It wasn’t my intention to insinuate that Supergirl… I guess I just didn’t know you two were so _close_ , is all.”

Alex’s nostrils flare and her eyes flash and Maggie just _knows_ she’s stepped in it. (Fuck, why does she have to make everything _worse_?) “Just because _you_ don’t care doesn’t mean nobody else does, Maggie,” she snaps.

Maggie takes a physical step backwards at those cutting words. Alex turns on her heel and stalks off, without even so much as a glance behind her to notice the devastation she’s left in her wake.

Maggie blinks and watched her friend’s retreating figure, completely incapable of forming words.

Well.

That stung.

**

This is stupid. She’s doing something really, truly, _incredibly_ stupid.

(Right? This is… this is a _bad_ idea. It _has_ to be a bad idea. There’s no way this can end well.)

She turns around five times before she gets to the elevator in the lobby, and then again when the elevator spits her out on the right floor.

But when she turns around to make her escape the doors have already shut, and so she sighs in resignation.

She’s here now. Might as well get on with it.

Maggie takes a breath and straightens her shoulders, turning on her heel to survey the office in front of her. She’s never been here before, but she knows from all of Danvers’s ramblings that her sister is a reporter at CatCo. She just has to find Kara’s desk and hope that she isn’t immediately turned away.

If someone like _Supergirl_ knows the tangled romantic mess she and Danvers have fallen into, then surely her _sister_ must know, too.

This is a bad idea.

Maybe she should just—

“Detective Sawyer?”

Maggie wants to groan, but she doesn’t. (She’s the one who wanted this, after all. Just because Kara found her first and didn’t give her the chance to chicken out doesn’t mean that she can’t still do this and do it right. She just has to man up.)

“Hey, Danv—Kara. Hey, Kara.”

Kara approaches her, stack of papers tucked against her body and brows knitted together, confused and wary. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Is Alex okay?” She asks, suddenly panicked, taking a few quick steps towards Maggie.

“Everything’s totally fine,” Maggie is quick to reassure her. “Sorry, I know you’re busy, I was just… do you think we could talk, for a minute?”

Kara reaches up and adjusts her glasses, pushing them further up her nose. “Talk about what?”

Maggie shoots her a strained smile. “Your sister, unsurprisingly.”

“Is she alright?”

“She’s fine I just… I wanted to ask you about her.”

Kara chews on her lower lip, eyes unfocused. “I don’t know… I feel weird talking about her when she isn’t here.”

“Please?” (Maggie doesn’t like the desperation in her own voice, doesn’t like the vulnerability she can feel in her words. But it definitely seems to work. She’ll bite her tongue and do what she has to do.)

Kara softens, her eyes turning lighter behind her glasses. Her shoulders drop slightly, the stiffness leaving her body. “Yeah,” she acquiesces, and Maggie breathes a sigh of relief. “Just…” Kara continues, gesturing with her head towards the back of the building, “follow me.”

She leads the way through the bustling office, and Maggie tries her best to appear inconspicuous. She doesn’t like being stared at, doesn’t like being watched, and she feels remarkably out of place in this environment. She pulls at the bottom of her coat, wishing she were wearing something just _slightly_ more corporate-professional, as opposed to a leather jacket and dark jeans that she hasn’t washed in going on a week and a half.

She ducks her head and sticks close to Kara.

Kara leads her into a small and deserted office, and holds the door open for Maggie to enter first.

The room is bare, but pristine in its cleanliness, with natural light flooding in through large windows built into one wall. She wonders why such an appealing space would be without an occupant, and opens her mouth to ask, but Kara beats her to it.

“This is James Olson’s old office.”

Maggie turns her head to meet Kara’s watchful gaze. “Jimmy Olson? The photographer?”

Kara nods. “We haven’t been able to fill his position yet, so they’ve just left the office empty.”

Maggie looks around approvingly. “It’s a nice room.”

“I didn’t think we were here to discuss my office’s décor, Detective Sawyer.”

Maggie clears her throat, still not wanting to look directly at Kara. “Right,” she says quietly, steeling herself, “right.”

It’s quiet for several long moments, but when Maggie still can’t seem to say what she wants, Kara prompts her again. “What’s wrong, Detective Sawyer?”

“I’m not here as a detective, so Maggie is just fine.”

Kara narrows her eyes. “I think you’re stalling for time.”

Maggie has to smile ruefully. “I think you’re right.”

“So why are you here?”

Maggie takes a deep breath. “Kara, if I ask you something… will you answer me truthfully?”

Kara looks positively _petrified_ at the question (a bit of an overreaction, in Maggie’s personal opinion), and gulps thickly. “Sure um… what’s… what’s the question?”

Maggie bites her lip. “Your sister and… Supergirl.” Kara’s eyes widen to giant blue spheres and Maggie’s stomach sinks, but she plows on determinedly, “What’s the… How do they know each other?”

Kara laughs, high and panicked. “ _What_?” She scoffs and shakes her head, fingers toying with the edges of the papers she still clutches in her arms. “Why would… Why would you ask that? I mean they… they barely know each other they just work together.”

“They work together?” Maggie asks (she tries not to let her hope show through in her words). A nod of confirmation, and Kara can’t meet her eyes. “And that’s it?”

“Yes of course that’s it!” Kara can’t quite look at her. It seems neither Danvers sister has an innate ability to conceal her emotions. “That’s all!” She repeats adamantly, with a high and wavering voice that Maggie can’t believe. “That’s it that’s all of it of course it is.”

Maggie swallows and nods, grinding her teeth to avoid the tightness in her throat and the tears which threatened to spill from her eyes.

Kara is lying to her.

That can’t mean good things.

**

This is the right decision. She knows it. She _knows_ it. This is the right call.

Alex isn’t ready for this, isn’t ready for a real, full-time relationship, isn’t even really _sure_ about her sexuality, isn’t out to her family…

But then it isn’t _really_ about Alex, is it? It’s all just a bunch of excuses.

Maggie drums her fingers against her kitchen table, phone sitting locked and silent in front of her. Maybe she should just call—

But she can’t. It isn’t right of her, nor is it fair. She _just_ rejected—

It isn’t right of her to call. She really shouldn’t. Alex made it perfectly clear that she wants nothing to do with Maggie, nothing to do with Maggie’s excuses, nothing to do with any of it.

And besides, she probably doesn’t even want…

There’s something strange going on between Alex and Supergirl. Kara can deny it all she likes, but there’s… there’s something _more_ there, something more than they’ve been telling her. They’re lying about their relationship and Maggie can’t figure out why.

(She knows why. In her heart of hearts, she knows the reason. She just doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want it to be true.)

She shouldn’t call Alex. It isn’t her place. Alex owes her nothing. Maggie’s the one who shut it down before it ever really had a chance to begin. Maggie’s the one who pulled away from the kiss, put a hand up between them, made Alex look at her with eyes that just _screamed_ devastation and humiliation and betrayal and…

She never wanted that. She never wanted any of it. She _hates_ that she did that to someone as kind, as passionate, as sweet and sincere and determined and _strong_ as Alex.

She hates herself, for that.

Maybe she should call her. Maybe she should call and apologize, invite Alex out for drinks and pool and then… and then what? Kiss and make up? Pretend that the past few days never even happened?

(Pretend like Alex and Supergirl aren’t… whatever it is they are?)

What if she calls Alex and Alex turns her down? What if she calls Alex and Alex says, “Sorry about it babe, but you’re too late. You waited too long and I found someone who cares about me, who wants me to be safe, who defends me and doesn’t hurt me and who can fucking _fly_ , so who needs you?”

(Alex would never say that, but that isn’t really the point.)

Just as she’s asking herself for the thousandth time whether or not she should bite the bullet and just do what she actually _wants_ to do, her phone lights up with an angry buzz, jolting Maggie out of whatever stupor she had fallen into. She snatches it up, barely pausing to glance at the face on her caller ID, her heart rate immediately accelerating.

“Danvers,” she breaths like a relief, “hey, I was just—”

 _‘Maggie?’_ Alex’s voice, though small and tinny in her ear, is also tense and tight. She only just gets the chance to open her mouth to respond before the woman on the other end of the line continues with a curt, _‘Get every available unit you have to L-Corp._ Now _.’_

“Wait Alex tell me what—” But the line cuts out immediately, and the phone goes dead.

Maggie curses under her breath. Of _course_ it was about business. It’s always about business between the two of them recently, isn’t it?

 _It’s your own fault,_ a traitorous voice hisses in her ear, _you’re the one who said that you should just be friends._

She grits her teeth, shakes her head, grabs her phone, and starts making as many phone calls as she can while she speeds out the door.

~~

Alex and Supergirl are close. Like… _close_ close. Like jump in front of a bullet for each other close. Like shout in terror when the other one is in danger close. Like run towards each other at the first sign of injury, like relieved hugging, bodies tight together, eyes soft and concerned close.

There’s really only one conclusion to be drawn from this: Alex is in love with Supergirl.

Maggie doesn’t like it.

(Yes, she told Alex that they should just be friends, told her that that was for the best… and it _is_ for the best. She knows that it is.)

(So why does the image of Alex crushing Supergirl in a fierce hug make her stomach turn in on itself?)

They stand together in a tight embrace, pure and clean and untouched amidst the bombed-out rubble littering the street around them. Smoke whirls, paramedics carry bleeding bodies out of destroyed buildings, pull covered corpses out of burning cars, but Alex and Supergirl stand together, an oasis of serenity in the chaos.

“You have to stop doing this,” she can make out Alex’s quiet voice even from her spot several paces away, even though Alex’s face is buried in Supergirl’s hair.

Maggie freezes where she stands, not even wanting to breathe in case the sound of air passing through her lungs masks the conversation she can just barely hear.

“I know, Alex. I’m sorry,” Supergirl says softly, her head bent low in quiet compunction.

“When that second bomb went off I just…” Alex pulls away and sighs. “You have to stop running headfirst into danger without any backup. I can’t protect you if you don’t _let_ me protect you.”

Maggie clenches her teeth as tears build, unbidden and unwanted, behind her eyes. (Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that this is the thing she has been too afraid to even really consider. This closeness, this bond, this relaxed affection between Alex and Supergirl that she doesn’t understand, that she doesn’t think she’ll _ever_ understand, that she can’t know, that she can’t compete with.)

“You know I don’t need protecting. I’m fireproof,” Supergirl says, her voice light and teasing (like they’ve done this a million times before, like it’s already practiced between them, like it’s a rehearsed bit rather than a spontaneous conversation).

(Maggie wonders how often they’ve spoken like this, how often this exchange has passed between them, and her heart sinks at the thought as she tries to brush the image from her mind.)

“Hey, let me just have this one thing, okay?” Alex brings a hand up and brushes the hair off of Supergirl’s face, tucking it back behind her ear, and _God_ the gesture is so familiar, so _intimate_ , that Maggie feels distinctly like she’s intruding. She feels a flush rise in her cheeks and she fights against the urge to turn away. (She’s perversely curious, and she’s always had a bit of a masochistic streak. She wants to keep looking. She wants to know everything she can.) “I like feeling like I can protect you,” Alex whispers, and Maggie lets out a puff of breath and a strangled, injured gasp that she can’t quite suppress.

She feels more than sees Supergirl’s head whip around to face her, and Maggie immediately looks down, scribbling desperately on the notepad she grasps in her hand as she tries to look busy.

(She’s not sure it works, not sure she’s gotten away with it, not sure she’s escaped the notice of Supergirl and her lightning-quick observations.)

The next time she glances up, Supergirl is gone, and Alex is talking to a few bruised eyewitnesses and pretending like nothing’s wrong, like Maggie hasn’t just been caught eavesdrop on a private conversation between her and… between…

Maggie sighs.

This is not exactly how she pictured her week going.

She honestly can’t see it getting any worse, from here.

On the bright side, though: at least now she’s pretty sure she understands the strangely intense dynamic between Danvers and Supergirl. So… at least there’s that.

(It doesn’t make her feel any better.)

“They aren’t together.”

Maggie blinks and starts, turning to face the woman who has snuck up behind her. “ _What_?” She asks, completely confused.

Lena Luthor stands behind her, arms folded across her chest. She looks a little worse for the wear, her hair all mussed up and a thin layer of dust coating most of her outfit. She must have been pretty near the explosions, Maggie figures.

She wonders if she should suggest that Lena visit the paramedics, but when she takes in the scene around them she knows that it isn’t possible, at the moment. EMS is busy, and Lena is walking and talking and looking at Maggie with that haughty expression Maggie has only ever seen on the faces of the rich and powerful, so Maggie thinks that she’ll be just fine.

Lena eyes Maggie knowingly. “Supergirl and Agent Danvers,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “They aren’t together.”

Maggie blinks and looks down, shuffling her feet, as she blushes. “Why would you… I mean what did…” She takes a breath, resigned. “How do you know?” She finally asks, softly, desperately.

(She hates weakness; she hates needing things from other people; she hates being desperate and she hates vulnerability and she hates the fact that with Alex, she’s such a goddamn open book.)

Lena shrugs. “I asked Kara when she came to meet me for lunch.” Maggie raises an eyebrow at that. Lena tilts her head, chin up almost defiantly, but does not respond to Maggie’s probing look, does not explain to Maggie exactly _why_ Kara Danvers would be meeting the CEO of a multi-million-dollar company for lunch like it’s a normal thing (then again, Kara _does_ seem to have important friends in high places. It isn’t too far fetched, Maggie supposes, for her and Lena Luthor to have crossed paths and bumped elbows at some point in their lives and careers). “She seemed very offended by the idea,” Lena says with a small smirk on her face. “Became very flustered and red-faced when I asked.” She looks at Maggie carefully. “Maybe you could tell me why?”

Maggie lets out a tense breath. “I know… _Less_ than you do, clearly.”

Lena’s eyes drag up and down her body in a move that _would_ have been predatory had anyone else done it. But for some reason Maggie almost feels like Lena is… sizing her up because she _respects_ her. Which is a ridiculous notion… Right?

“Well… Best of luck to you, Detective Sawyer. I have to try and locate Kara.” It’s only then that Maggie notices that Lena has her phone clutched in her hand like she’s afraid she’ll fall off the very face of the Earth if she lets go of it. “She isn’t answering her phone,” she says, glancing down at the cracked glass in her palm

The underlying fear — which Lena is working so hard to mask, Maggie can tell — seeps out in the slight edge to her voice, in the way Lena looks down at the phone in her hand, willing it to spring to life and tell her where Kara is.

Maggie studies her, thinks that she understands the thing Lena is reluctant to say, but knows when to keep her mouth shut. “Let me know when you find her?” She asks, and Lena nods.

The fire that burns in Lena’s eyes as she turns away from her tells Maggie that she has undoubtedly guessed correctly.

Seems she isn’t the only one around here after a Danvers sister.

~~

It isn’t that she doesn’t _trust_ Lena Luthor, not really, it’s just that… well Kara told her the same thing only a few days ago. And, as far as Maggie knows, Lena is also getting her information from Kara. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Lena Luthor (although she doesn’t really, if she’s honest), it’s just that… she’s spoken to Kara. And Kara is a terrible liar. And maybe Lena can’t see it, but Maggie can.

Just because Kara claims that there isn’t anything between Alex and Supergirl doesn’t necessarily mean squat. Plenty of reasons exist as to why Alex and Supergirl might need to keep their relationship a secret, plenty of reasons why the two women would be so determined to hide any romantic feelings between them, to hide anything more serious than being coworkers.

Maggie can easily think of a thousand and one reasons why it would be very bad indeed for Supergirl to have a significant other somewhere on Earth (a human significant other who, despite what she likes to think and despite her bold confidence, is _not_ actually indestructible).

That’s the whole reason superheroes have secret identities, after all. They want to protect their lives; protect the people they love. Maggie isn’t stupid.

She’s sure Lena means well, but the word of a casual acquaintance to the Danvers family doesn’t exactly ease the worry that has built inside of her.

It’s not like she can in any good measure be _mad_ at Alex. Alex is just… doing what Maggie told her to do. She’s dating. Alex is… she’s seeing other people. Like Maggie told her she should.

Seeing other people who _aren’t_ Maggie. (It definitely doesn’t bother her.)

Which… again, it’s not like Maggie told her to do something _different_. It isn’t like she’s given Alex any hint of any indication that she might _actually_ be interested, like maybe she’s just using Alex’s coming out as an excuse to stay away because in actuality she really _likes_ Alex, and liking Alex scares her, and she feels drawn to her and close to her and she wants something more but she’s so afraid because every relationship she’s ever had has crashed and burned with a shocking amount of intensity and maybe she wants Alex to—

Okay. So.

Maybe she’s made a mistake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter takes place after ‘tinfoil words,’ so if you haven’t read that yet I seriously suggest it.

Eventually she _has_ to call Alex. She can’t keep putting it off, especially because now the NCPD _actually_ needs the DEO’s help, and she has a job to do and she can’t let things like personal issues or fear get in the way of that.

She swallows her pride and makes the call.

She thinks that maybe Alex won’t answer, that maybe she’ll be iced out, that maybe Alex will refuse to work with her and then she can send Ryan or O’Conner to be their official liaisons instead so she won’t have to _deal with this_. But Alex picks up, because she’s good at her job too, just like Maggie, and she cares about what she does and she cares about the city and she understands that they have to occasionally work together and like… cooperate professionally. (Maggie thinks Alex might be swallowing her pride a little bit, too.)

Alex agrees to meet her, because Maggie is clearly desperate, and if there’s one thing she hates, it’s incompetence; inability; weakness. Alex knows this about her. She wouldn’t call if they weren’t well and truly desperate for some kind of lead, for some sort of break in the case.

Alex knows she wouldn’t call for just anything.

(She sort of wishes she _could_ call for just anything.)

Working with Alex is... it’s a little weird, if she’s being honest. Things are a little weird.

Alex barely glances at her when Maggie shows up at her desk at just after 7:30 (Alex told her to come after work, when it would be less busy), cup of coffee in hand as a gesture of goodwill. When Maggie grins and shoots her a happy, “Hey, Alex,” Alex just nods in greeting and holds her hand out for the file in Maggie’s possession.

She doesn’t take the coffee. Maggie tries not to let it offend her.

They don’t make small talk. Maggie _tries_ , she really does, but Alex is noncommittal and evasive, sending her confused or annoyed or angry or dry looks every time Maggie even _starts_ to tease her, or poke fun at the pictures on her desk, or recall some of the more outlandish memories they share of fighting impossible creatures.

Working with Alex is never boring, because 9 times out of 10 it involves aliens or beings with superpowers or technology that shouldn’t exist and yet _does_ , and she hopes that maybe… maybe if she reminds Alex of how well they work together, of how much fun they have on cases, of how thrilling it is to head into a fight you’re not confident you’ll survive, that maybe she can get Alex to stop being so cold towards her.

Alex doesn’t play along, however, so eventually Maggie stops speaking altogether and just stands there, bogged down by the heavy silence, as she waits for Alex to finish reading the file.

Eventually Alex nods, closes the file with little fanfare, and says, “This sounds like something we’ve been looking into.”

Maggie frowns. “You mean there are _more_ cases like this?”

She’s surprised. She’s never heard of something like this before, of a robbery with no evidence left behind (not even any broken glass or traumatized witnesses). That’s sort of why she’s here; usually she goes to the DEO when the rational side of her brain can’t make sense of the problem in front of her.

It’s an impossible case; that’s the DEO’s specialty.

So for Alex to say that this is ‘something they’ve been looking into’… Maggie is surprised. And a little annoyed that she doesn’t already know about it. (She doesn’t like being out of the loop.)

When Alex speaks next she says more words than Maggie’s heard out of her mouth in weeks, as if the common ground of detective work has finally eased the awkward tension between them. ( _Should have tried this two weeks ago_ , Maggie thinks, a little frustrated with herself. She should have _thought_ of this.) “Yeah, and all with this same M.O.,” Alex says, “but it’s been tricky putting it all together.”

(This one sentence shouldn’t thrill her as much as it does, but it’s the first and _only_ full sentence Alex has spoken in her presence since they kissed. Everything else has been short words, perfunctory pleasantries, or else heated arguments. So yeah, Maggie is pretty thrilled with even one normal sentence. Hopefully she can turn it into a full, normal conversation.)

Maggie tries not to let it bother her that Alex has been hiding things from her, but she can’t help it when her arms fold together over her chest and she asks, a little crossly, “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?”

Alex rolls her eyes, but Maggie can see that she’s smiling, the corner of her mouth twitching up ever so slightly, so she knows it’s a faux-annoyance, a fabricated expression. Her heart leaps because Alex is exasperated with her but it isn’t in a bad way; she isn’t acting like Maggie is the bane of her existence anymore, but rather like she’s some sort of adorably idiotic coworker. (Maggie will take it; she’ll take whatever she can get at this point.)

“Because it’s been happening all over the _country_ , not just National City.” Alex turns in her seat and hits a few buttons on her computer, opening up screen after screen of crime reports, a map with highlighted areas, and a few grainy security cam images and videos. Maggie moves around the desk so she has a better view of what Alex is doing. “Look…” Alex pulls up the map and Maggie is completely taken aback by the red flooding every corner, little flags that swarm together to create an almost dizzying effect. Alex starts picking marked regions, almost at random. “Midway, Central, Star, Coast, Fawcett and National City, Blue Valley, Gotham, Metropolis… the list just keeps going.”

Maggie leans over the back of Alex’s chair and frowns at the flood of images she can see poking out from behind the map. “How many cases?” She asks, dying to reach out and surf through the information on her own, dying to nudge Alex over and perch on the edge of her chair and snatch the mouse from her hands.

She doesn’t do any of that. She doesn’t know if she’s in good enough standing with Alex to do it, doesn’t know if Alex will take it as the teasingly playful gesture she means it to be, or if she’ll feel like Maggie is overstepping boundaries and invading her personal space.

(She keeps her hands to herself.)

“Probably close to thirty,” Alex says, intent on the screen in front of her.

Maggie is floored. “All robberies? Like this one?”

“We think so, yeah. It’s just…” Alex pulls up a long sheet of highlighted business names and reads down the list. “Look, they’ve robbed banks, jewelry stores, electronics stores, super markets, office buildings, R&D labs…” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “The only problem is, there’s never been any sign of a break in.”

Maggie shoots her a look out of the corner of her eye. “What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ ,” Alex clicks her mouse a few more times and pulls up a collection of photos and crime scene reports, “that there was no damage done to any of the buildings or any of the property, no broken locks or broken glass, no blown up safes, no sign of a break in _anywhere_ , just… they show up, walk inside, and then five minutes later they leave, with bags full of stolen items and no way of having gotten a hold of them.”

Maggie squints. “Well how do you even know they’re the same guys? I mean… there are thousands of robberies every day. And if they aren’t hitting similar spots, and if they’re happening all over the country, how do you know that something’s connecting them?”

“That’s the thing,” Alex says, clicking on one of the surveillance videos. “So we have footage, but you can’t see any faces. All we know is that a group of around four to six men arrive in a white van at a location — the number changes depending on eye witness reports, but city cameras have only ever caught five at a time. Though… I mean clearly we can’t tell if it’s the _same_ five. But we have a pretty good bet. Look,” she points at the video, where men dressed all in black with faces covered pile out of an unmarked van and slip through the glass doors of an indiscernible bank, “three of them go inside while two stand guard, and then five minutes later they get back in the van and completely disappear.”

Maggie eyes Alex again. “What do you mean ‘disappear’?”

“Watch.” Alex pushes a button on her keyboard and the time stamp on the video jumps ahead four minutes. “Look, they’re coming out now.” And sure enough, Maggie watches as three men in black reappear from the front of the bank, each carrying a thick and obviously heavy bag. They climb into the back of the van and Alex pauses the footage.

“Now, here’s the same thing from a camera across the street.” She pulls up another clip, and Maggie watches from a wider angle as the men climb into the van again. “The van pulls away,” Alex narrates, “and… here, I’ll switch to a camera on the corner.” She clicks her mouse and Maggie watches the van pull away from the front of the bank in one shot as it reappears in the other. “Watch how they’re driving; they aren’t speeding; they’re _stopping at stop signs_ … they aren’t worried about being followed.”

Maggie shakes her head, perplexed. “I don’t understand,” she says, straightening up (but she keeps a hand on Alex’s chair, just barely brushing against the back of her neck). “They were in there five minutes, and no one called the police? What about security footage from inside the bank, or any of the labs, or the stores?”

“Nothing!” Alex is excited; Maggie can hear it in her voice, can see it in the way she bounces ever so slightly where she sits. Maggie loves it, loves that Alex is passionate again, loves that she’s _sharing_ that passion with her, again.

(For a minute there she didn’t think she would ever be lucky enough to witness its return.)

“No camera footage inside at all,” Alex continues, voice rising and gaining energy. “In each of the locations the cameras were either disabled, had been broken for a few weeks, didn’t exist, or else weren’t wired to anything and were just there for show.”

Maggie blinks. How is that possible? “What… at _all_ of the locations?” She asks.

Alex nods. “Every single one.”

“So… they knock out the cameras before they go inside?”

“No that’s just the thing… there’s no evidence anyone disabled any of the cameras remotely _or_ physically. They just… were all, somehow, non-functioning. And that’s not the _only_ weird thing… it’s not even close to the _weirdest_ thing.” Maggie doesn’t know how there could possibly be _more_ to this. “Watch this,” Alex says, excitedly.

Maggie watches the van turn the corner and disappear from the camera’s line of sight.

She waits patiently for something else to happen, for something else to appear, for Alex to move on to the next shot and follow the van through the city… but there’s nothing.

“What am I looking for?”

“You’re looking for where the van went,” Alex says like she’s exceedingly slow.

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Well _obviously_ I can’t see where the van went; you haven’t gone to the next shot.”

Alex grins, giddy in the face of Maggie’s annoyance. “I can’t go to the next shot,” she says, her voice almost breathless with excitement. “They _literally_ disappeared.”

Maggie’s eyebrows shoot up and she bends forward again, bringing her nose as close to the computer screen as she dares. “They disappeared? How? Show me.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. Look…” she points to the video they’ve just been watching, the area the van has just vacated, “this camera can’t see around that corner, and the _next_ camera…” she pulls up another window, with the same time stamp, “the next camera can’t see anything until about halfway down the block. That means there’s about 25 feet of dead space, with no surveillance cameras or traffic cameras or anything.” She flicks her computer screen, her nail making a sharp _snap_ against the glass. “They turn that corner, disappear from view, and then that’s it. They never reappear. They vanish.”

Maggie leans closer, squinting at the screen, her nose almost brushing against it. (She feels a little silly, but she ignores the trepidation inside of her because this is her job and Alex is _finally_ talking to her and she’ll do just about whatever she has to do, as long as that continues, as long as they can keep working together, as she’s able to solve this case.) “Side street?” She asks. “Back alley?”

Alex shakes her head. “No. There’s nowhere to turn off, there are buildings on both sides until the next intersection.”

“Are there any garages?”

“No it’s a residential street.”

“Manhole? Storm drain?”

“There’s _nothing_ on that street, Maggie.”

Maggie is quiet for a few long moments as she rolls the information around in her head, trying to come up with some sort of explanation. She falls short. “So… how are they doing it, then?”

“We don’t know. That’s why we’ve been tracking the activity, because it doesn’t make sense. It seems impossible, which usually means…”

“Aliens,” Maggie finishes, quietly.

Alex bites her lip to try and keep her (somewhat inappropriate) glee to herself. It isn’t exactly proper to rejoice over wide-spread criminal activity. “Aliens or people with off-world tech, yeah,” Alex says.

Maggie tilts her head, scanning a few of the documents open on Alex’s desk top, but none of them tell her anything she really wants to know. Alex would have read these thoroughly by now, anyway; it’s unlikely that her brief once-over would enlighten either of them.

A thought pops into her head. She’s not sure exactly how or why she thinks of it, but something sparks in her mind and she can’t stop herself from asking, “Are these the guys behind those bombings, do you think?”

Alex shakes her head. “We don’t think so, no, but then again we aren’t sure. All of the security cameras in that section of the city shut down about ninety seconds before the first bomb went off so we weren’t able to find anything concrete.”

“ _All_ of the cameras?” Maggie asks incredulously.

Alex sighs. “Yeah, so we don’t have any footage this time.” She pauses and purses her lips, turning to face Maggie full-on for the first time that night. (Maggie’s heart leaps, but she shoves it down because they’re _working_ and she doesn’t have time for ridiculous feelings.) “But I don’t know, it doesn’t _feel_ like these guys, to me. I mean… they’ve never used explosives before, so I don’t know why they would start now.”

“They haven’t done anything like that before? Caused a disruption in one part of the city to draw police presence away from what they were doing?”

Alex shakes her head. “They’ve never _needed_ to do that, before. They’re in and out in five minutes, with no casualties, almost no witnesses, no alarms, and no 911 calls.” Alex shrugs. “They’re ghosts.”

Maggie frowns. “So our ghosts aren’t our bombers?”

“I really don’t think that they are.”

“And we don’t have any leads on who these guys are or what they’re after?”

“Afraid not.”

Maggie whistles, low and long and quiet. “Damn Danvers, this sure seems like a pickle.” She pauses for a moment, eye contact lingering with Alex’s for just a hair too long as she makes a quick decision. “Wanna head to the bar?” She asks boldly, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets. “We could try and figure this out over a few beers, maybe?”

Alex looks like she wants to say no. She pauses, freezes for a moment, bites her lip and tilts her head, but the look on Maggie’s face must do enough to convince her, because finally she nods.

Maggie tries not to smile until after Alex has left to grab her coat.

~~

She’s missed this. _God_ she’s missed this so much.

It’s only been two weeks, what is _wrong_ with her? It’s only been two weeks and yet sitting in a noisy bar in a booth with Alex, drinking a cold beer and discussing a difficult case… it feels so calm, so natural, almost like coming home. (How does Alex have this hold on her… how has she _let_ Alex have this hold on her?)

 _Fuck_ she’s missed this.

Alex is smiling at her. Alex is smiling at her, and Alex let her buy the drinks, and Alex is laughing at her teasing jokes, and Alex is _relaxing_ around her for the first time in weeks, and Alex looks so beautiful with her hair falling around her face and her eyes bright in the dark room, and Maggie’s such a fucking sap but _God_ is she happy.

She’s really, _really_ missed this.

She’s just finished telling Alex the story of O’Conner spilling his coffee all over the floor of the city morgue — a morbidly hilarious story that makes Alex simultaneously cringe, laugh, and groan — and Alex is shaking her head ruefully as she absentmindedly peels the label off of her beer with her right thumb.

Maggie grins. The case files are all laid out on the table in front of them but they’ve barely glanced at any of the papers. They’ve been too caught up in talking to each other, in sharing the stories they’ve missed out on in their weeks of separation, in getting a little drunk and laughing and brushing legs under the table, that any semblance of ‘work’ has gone out the window.

It was only a pretext, at least for Maggie. She never really _wanted_ to do work.

She’s glad that it at least _looks_ like Alex feels the same way.

“So what do you say… another round?” She asks, tilting her chin towards the bar, eyes crinkled around the edges because she just _can’t_ stop smiling. (She’s such a fucking sap.)

Alex bites her lip and nods, hair falling across her face and hiding her demure blush.

Maggie has to fight against the desire to practically _skip_ from the table. She doesn’t even care that she’s bought the past 2 rounds, even though _usually_ she would demand that they alternate picking up the tab, just in the name of fairness. Tonight though? Tonight she’s happy to spend hundreds of dollars on drinks, if it means that Alex keeps looking at her like that.

It feels sort of like a date. She _knows_ it isn’t, obviously she knows it isn’t, because she knows that Alex and Supergirl are… whatever it is they are. But maybe…

 _No_. It isn’t a date, and she needs to stop thinking that it feels like one. (But maybe…)

She glances over her shoulder at the woman she’s left alone at their cluttered table. Alex is taking the brief reprieve of her absence to poke around a few of the grainier images, squinting a little as she tilts her head from side to side.

 _What do they even talk about together?_ Maggie wonders as she watches Alex’s fingers slide over the manila folders. _What do Supergirl and a DEO Agent have in common, besides the fact that they both fight aliens? What do they_ talk _about? Their career goals? Funny childhood stories? Their family lives…?_ She pauses for a moment as a thought strikes her, and she can’t believe it’s never occurred to her before now.

Does Alex know who Supergirl is? Does Alex _know_ Supergirl, like… does she _actually_ know her? Does she know who Supergirl is when she takes off the cape and goes home for the night? Does she know her favorite foods, does she take her out to restaurants, does she know where she lives? Does she know Supergirl as a person outside of her superhero persona?

She has to, right? How could she _not_? You know that stuff about the people you date, about the people you fall in love with. It’s just… dating 101.

But then again… how do you _date_ a superhero?

She’s almost curious. She almost wants to ask. She almost wants to pick Alex’s brain just out of sheer intrigue, because when is she _ever_ going to get an opportunity like this again? When is she ever going to be able to take a look at the secret lives of superheroes if not now, if not in this situation? (She’s always had a bit of a masochistic streak in her.)

But then Alex looks up and glances her way — presumably because it’s been almost four minutes since Maggie left to pick up their drinks and she’s taking fucking _forever_ — and she sees Maggie watching her, and Alex _smiles_ a crooked little half-smile, her eyes gleaming.

Maggie smiles back, trying to hide the fact that her heart is doing somersaults in her chest, and she vows to stop thinking about Supergirl altogether.

It doesn’t do any good to dwell on it. It only upsets her, it only makes her feel guilty, it only makes her second guess every aspect of her relationship with Alex, and she doesn’t want to do that. She _likes_ Alex; probably a lot more than she should. And she desperately wants _Alex_ to like _her_. Overthinking any sort of interaction between them makes it uncomfortable, makes _both_ of them uncomfortable. She doesn’t want that.

 _Besides_ , she thinks to herself, defensively, _you can flirt with your friends. That’s perfectly fine._ She can flirt with Alex a little bit and she doesn’t have to feel guilty about it, as long as it doesn’t make Alex uncomfortable. She shouldn’t overthink the way that she’s acting because it’s perfectly _fine_ , and it _isn’t_ cheating, and it isn’t making anyone uncomfortable so it’s perfectly fine.

A small, traitorous part of her sort of hopes that maybe, if she can remind Alex of how much _fun_ they have together, then maybe Alex will want to try again, with the two of them. She’s pretty much royally fucked the whole thing up at this point, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t have a second chance. She made a mistake when she pulled away from the kiss, when she told Alex that they should just be friends, and a small, self-indulgent and self-righteous part of her wants Alex to _know_ that, wants Alex to know that she _regrets_ it, wants Alex to know that they could be really, _really_ good together, if she was willing. If they could just let it happen, then maybe…

(She shoves that part of her down and away because not only is it impossible and not only will it _never_ happen, but it makes her stomach fill with guilt and her throat burn with bile because this _isn’t who she is_. She isn’t a girl who steals another woman’s girlfriend. This isn’t who she is.)

(Alex makes her forget who she is.)

(She isn’t sure if that’s good or bad.)

She slides into the bench across from Alex and pushes one of the bottles towards her.

Alex quirks an eyebrow as her hand closes around the drink. “Took you long enough,” she teases.

“Well I wanted to keep you waiting; Mom always told me that I should use a little more mystery with women. You gotta keep them wanting more.” She winks as she brings the dark bottle to her lips, so she isn’t totally sure if Alex catches the gesture (isn’t totally sure she _wants_ Alex to catch the gesture).

But judging by the way Alex flushes and glances down at the drink in her hand, she thinks she may have caught the wink, and may have caught the intention behind it.

After a few short moments, Alex clears her throat and brings her head up, looking around the bar with a sort of nervous energy that Maggie finds absolutely enthralling and endearing.

Just as Maggie is about to facilitate the beginning of another conversation, Alex freezes where she sits in a moment that is so unsettlingly unexpected that Maggie almost feels like she’s watching someone give herself whiplash.

All the color leaves Alex’s face. Her eyes widen and her lips part, and she’s petrified as she focuses on something behind Maggie, something Maggie can’t see, and Maggie feels a slight fear rise in her, as well.

(Not much scares Alex; she’s a kickass federal agent who fights aliens for a living. She doesn’t really get scared. The fact that she looks so horrified right now, pale as if she’s just seen a ghost, does not make Maggie feel confident.)

She wants to turn to see what’s wrong, but she can’t pull her eyes from Alex’s face.

“I’m sorry Maggie I have to go,” Alex says, eyes still glued to a spot somewhere behind Maggie’s head.

Maggie is confused. She frowns and leans forward, attempting to meet Alex’s eye, reaching out as if to grab her hand. “You have to go?” She asks, a little anxiously. “Why?”

Alex shakes her head and simply says, “I have to go.”

She grabs her coat from the seat next to her and dashes towards the door, her face ashen and drawn and scared. Maggie twists in her seat, wrenching her back in an uncomfortable position as she tries to follow Alex with her eyes. She opens her mouth and makes to call out after her, but movement in her peripheral vision makes her pause, and she turns her head towards the TV that hangs behind the bar, muted but tuned to a local news station.

The same shaky cell phone video is playing on the TV again and again and again and again. It shows Supergirl, face smudged with dirt and grimacing harshly, staggering to her feet only to be body-slammed by some sort of monster that looks easily three times larger than her, with bulging muscles, scaly skin, and rows upon rows of gnashing, gleaming teeth.

Maggie’s heart sinks into her stomach, and it for damn sure isn’t because she just watched Supergirl get chucked through a building.

Of course. _Of course_ that’s why Alex had to leave, of course that’s why she looked so sick and worried, of course that’s why she sprinted out of the bar in such a hurry that she left all of her files spread open on the table she once occupied.

Supergirl is in trouble.

And Supergirl always comes first, doesn’t she? Alex always has to save her. She’ll drop anything as soon as Supergirl needs help.

Of course.

The fact that Maggie thought for even a _second_ that she could come between Alex and Supergirl? Well. She feels very foolish for that indeed.

Maggie sighs, turns from the TV, and takes a long swig from her half-finished beer. She rubs at her eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted and strained and irrationally sad.

She finishes the rest of her drink, scoops up the papers and pictures and incident reports and field notes, drops a few dollars onto the table, and leaves without another word.

She doesn’t sleep well that night, but she tells herself it’s because she’s too busy mulling over the puzzle Alex has presented her with, too busy thinking through scenarios and possibilities and trying to map out escape routes and uncover how these men pulled off an impossible crime.

(She lies to herself.)

**

Maggie goes to the DEO two days later, Alex’s case files and documents in hand. She hasn’t heard anything from Alex since the night at the bar, and so she figures… well it’s worth a shot, right? At the very least she thinks that Alex probably needs her shit back, and it’s only just now 1:00, so maybe she can persuade Alex to come and grab some lunch with her, too. Maybe she can use the guise of work to actually spend some time with her friend.

(Maybe — and this she hopes secretly — she’ll even get some kind of apology or explanation for the radio-silence she’s been treated to for almost 2 days. It’s unlikely, but a girl can dream.)

When she arrives at the DEO, however, her expectations sink. It’s overrun with frantic agents buzzing with nervous energy, and she figures that she probably won’t have much luck with Alex today. It feels like a busy day for alien activity.

But she’s here, now. And she’s been hoarding Alex’s cases for two days. So she should drop the files off. Since she’s already here.

She catches sight of Alex near the center of the large room, back turned towards where Maggie stands near the door. She adjusts the stack of papers in her arms as she approaches the other woman. She knows Alex is busy, but she’s here and she figures Alex can spare her five minutes; since she’s done her such a favor by bringing her work back, and since she hasn’t called Alex out on her incredibly rude behavior the other night. She’s done Alex a lot of favors, recently. “Hey, Danvers!” She calls as she gets closer.

Alex spins on her heels, her eyes wide and a little frantic, and her hair frazzled like she hasn’t had time to do it properly.

“Maggie!” She exclaims, a little breathless. “What are you doing here?”

Maggie lifts her arms, drawing attention to the mountain of paperwork she’s currently carrying. “You left them at the bar the other night,” she says.

Alex’s mind is anywhere but on this conversation, and Maggie can tell immediately. “Did I?” She asks like an afterthought, turning her head to try and glimpse something on the screens behind her.

Maggie fights against the urge to huff and roll her eyes and click her tongue and say something rude. Alex is a busy woman, she _knows_ this, but she can’t help but feel a little snubbed. Surely Alex can spare just five minutes to talk to her like a regular human being.

Maggie decides that if Alex doesn’t want to make time for her, she’s going to force the time. “Yeah,” she says, shifting on her feet to try and make herself more comfortable where she stands, settling in for a good twenty minutes of stalling. “I thought maybe we could look over a few of these reports, again? I think we stand a really good chance of having some kind of—”

“Maggie I’m sorry but I really can’t talk right now,” Alex cuts her off quickly, a sharp edge to her voice.

Maggie frowns, more than a little annoyed. “What do you mean you can’t talk? Not even for five minutes?”

“It’s not just that I can’t talk, I mean I can’t…” Alex takes a deep breath, lowers her head, and seems to brace herself. When she straightens and her eyes meet Maggie’s, they are as hard and cutting as the edge of a sword. “I can’t do this, Maggie, okay?”

She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand how this is Alex, the same Alex who sat across from her at a dingy bar two nights ago and smiled at her jokes and blushed at her easy flirtation. She doesn’t understand where all this is coming from. “Can’t do what?” She asks, halfway between incredulous and trepidatious.

“I can’t work with you, I can’t go to bars with you, I can’t drink and pretend like…” Alex runs her hand roughly through her short hair, and Maggie gets the distinct impression that were they not standing in the middle of Alex’s place of employment, she would scream in frustration. “I’m sorry,” she says, obviously exasperated. “I don’t have time for this. It’s too much to deal with and think about and I have to…” She clenches her fists and shuts her eyes tightly. “ _God_ it’s like every time I look away, every time I try and have a moment to myself to be happy and do my own thing she goes and…” Alex drifts off, and Maggie isn’t sure if she’s going to keep talking, so she prompts her.

“I don’t understand.” Maggie says in a quiet whisper, but she thinks that really she does. She doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to get it, but she thinks that she does.

Still, she isn’t quite prepared to have her fears confirmed.

“Supergirl is missing. Not… she isn’t _missing_ we know where she is we just can’t get to… she had to go get stuck on a _fucking_ planet without…” Alex shakes her head, her arms tight at her side and her face heavy and drawn. “Look I’m sorry, Maggie,” she says briskly, “but I can’t do this with you”

Maggie nods and tries not to let the sharp sting of Alex’s rejection hurt her so badly. “I understand,” she says quietly. “Supergirl comes first.”

“She _always does this_ ,” Alex growls, eyes scanning a few screens over Maggie’s left shoulder.

Maggie nods almost robotically, her eyes stuck on Alex’s face as if she’s memorizing it, as if this is the last time she’ll ever _really_ get to look at her.

(Alex doesn’t notice.)

(It definitely doesn’t bother her.)

“I’m sorry,” Maggie says, but she isn’t sure Alex can hear her, so engrossed is she in the satellite images flicking across the screen behind Maggie. “Good luck finding her.”

Alex nods and barely spares her a glance.

Maggie leaves.

(If she cries on her bike on the way back to her apartment, tears dripping out from under her helmet and quiet sobs drowned out by the roaring of the engine… well it’s no one’s business but her own.)

**

Maggie takes a shallow breath and closes her eyes, steeling herself for what’s about to happen. She clenches and unclenches her hands in a useless attempt to relieve some of the tension and anxiety seeping into her bones.

It doesn’t work, but she figures she has to at least try.

She swallows once, thickly, and tries to slow down the beating of her heart.

 _God_ , she’s so nervous. She doesn’t usually get this nervous.

Then again, she doesn’t usually find herself in situations like this, wherein she needs to tell the girl she’s pretty sure she’s falling for that she understands they can’t be together, and that she wishes her well in her relationship with a superhero.

(It only crosses her mind once, and very briefly, that Supergirl can _fly_ and is _indestructible_ and could probably throw Maggie straight through the precinct wall, if she was so inclined, and so maybe she shouldn’t try to piss off her sometimes-partner’s-maybe-girlfriend, because she would be pretty useless in a fight against the strongest woman on Earth. But again, it’s only a brief thought.)

She brings her hand up, fighting to keep her wrist from shaking, and knocks loudly three times.

Her heart is in her throat and her head feels thick with blood rush, but she has to do this. Things have been so weird between the two of them lately that she just has to make it all right. She can’t stand this. She can’t stand Alex hating her, flinching away from her whenever she approaches, snapping at her whenever Maggie seems to get her foot caught in her mouth (which is more often than one might think).

She’s so tired of it. She just wants it all to go back to normal… just wants _them_ to go back to normal.

(She doesn’t, not really, but what she _actually_ wants isn’t possible at the moment, so she’ll have to settle for as close to normalcy as possible. What she _actually_ wants isn’t bound to happen — how is Maggie supposed to compete against a woman who can _fly?_ — so she’ll just have to settle for being Alex’s friend. After all, having Alex in her life, even as just a friend and colleague, is infinitely better than not having her at all.)

(She’ll do what she has to do.)

It takes a few long moments for the door to open. It’s almost 9:30, and maybe Maggie should have waited to do this until tomorrow, but she has two drinks inside of her and she’s feeling very courageous (and she misses her drinking buddy, and she misses going out to the bar after work with Alex, and she’s _so_ lonely, and she doesn’t have many friends and she doesn’t want her _only_ friend to hate her, anymore, and after that day at the DEO… she knows she’s made a mistake and she just needs to fix it, and fix it now).

When Alex does finally answer the door, she seems a little confused — though not wholly surprised — to find Maggie on her stoop.

She pulls a robe tighter around her sleepwear and tilts her head, eyeing Maggie warily.

“Hey, Sawyer. What’s up? Is there a case you need help with?”

Maggie fights against the urge to simultaneously smile and sigh with discouragement. “It’s 9:30, Danvers,” she says teasingly (can’t help herself). “What possible case could I have for you at 9:30 on a Thursday?”

Alex huffs, but Maggie can see the small smile twitching at the side of her lips and feels like dancing at even this tiny victory.

Even though Alex told her only a few days ago that she couldn’t do this (whatever ‘this’ is), Maggie hopes that… she hopes that if she apologizes things can get back to normal. She’s put Alex in a bad situation and she doesn’t want to do that, anymore.

Alex leans against the doorway and arches an eyebrow, as if to say, _“Well? What now?”_ and Maggie clears her throat and tries to remember exactly why she’s here.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

Alex pauses and looks a little wary — the echo of their last strained encounter is loud in both of their minds — but finally she nods and steps aside.

Maggie’s grateful. She’s not sure what she would have done if Alex had turned her down, had slammed the door in her face and told her to fuck off.

She takes a step inside.

Walking into Alex’s apartment _aches_ , because Maggie is suddenly flooded with memories so intense that it sends her reeling. There are the real memories: the memory of eating dinner together, bent over the counter and over case files and over a plate of reheated Chinese food; grabbing a beer or two after a long day of work, plopping down on the couch and turning on some mindless sports game. Then there are the fake memories, the memories that aren’t actually a recollection of things that _have_ happened but rather things that _could have_ happened: the smell of pine trees at Christmas time, mistletoe hanging from every doorframe; Alex’s hand in hers as they watch television; Alex pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head as she slips out of bed in the morning, on her way to work; the smell of food roasting in the oven; the image of Alex cooking in a silly apron, flour streaked across her cheek; dancing to loud music late into the night. And then there are the memories that _aren’t_ hers, but which she can’t help but imagine as she looks around the apartment: Supergirl appearing outside Alex’s window, wry smile on her face as Alex rushes to let her in; Supergirl pressing Alex against the door, the counter, the fridge as they kiss feverishly; Alex and Supergirl eating dinner, bent over the counter and over case files and over a plate of reheated Chinese food…

Maggie shudders and closes her eyes.

She can do this. She _can_. She has to.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Alex asks from behind her, and Maggie straightens her spine and speaks before she loses the courage to do so.

“I wanted you to know that I know,” she says, with her back still to Alex.

“Know what?”

“I know about you and Supergirl.”

A hitch of breath, a sharp intake of air from behind her, and Alex’s voice asks, suddenly wavering (and a little hostile, which only deepens her conviction), “What do you mean?”

Maggie laughs, a little mirthlessly, and stares at the light fixture as she tries not to cry. “I get it, okay?” She says as she turns around finally, meeting Alex’s wide eyes with her own. “She’s… she’s a fucking _god_ , isn’t she?” Maggie sighs and shakes her head. “I honestly understand the appeal.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Alex asks, breathless, and Maggie really didn’t think she was going to have to do so much _talking_ during this interaction, just thought she’d say her piece and tell Alex she was happy for her and then slip out of the apartment to get smashed at one of the many cop bars on this side of town and work to forget the fact that, without even trying, Alex has managed to break her heart.

“Look I just… I’m not going to get in the way, okay? I know a lost cause when I see one.” Alex stares at her, disbelieving and confused. “I’m just sorry that I’ve been so weird recently. You don’t… you’ve moved on and I have to accept that. I told you to see other people and that’s what you’re doing. I have to respect that.”

“What do you mean I’m ‘ _seeing other people’_?” Alex asks, blinking and shaking her head. “I’m not seeing other people. I’m not seeing _anyone_.”

Maggie tries to smile, because she _understands_ ; she _knows_ why Alex has to pretend that she isn’t involved with Supergirl, and she understands how difficult it all must be and she _wants_ to be sympathetic, but she can’t manage more than a grimace. “Alex,” she says, as sincerely and as kindly as possible, “it’s okay. I know about you and Supergirl. You don’t have to keep hiding it from me.”

Alex blinks at her, eyes wide and mouth opening and shutting as she flounders for words. Maggie understands how she must be feeling. It’s probably a scary thing, for someone else to know about them, especially if—

“Me and… me and _who_ now?” Alex finally asks.

Maggie pauses and takes a moment to look at Alex, to _actually_ look at her. Her eyes are wide and her face is _definitely_ surprised, but she isn’t panicked. She looks confused and a little irritated, maybe, but… there’s no recognition anywhere in her expression, no sign of embarrassment or resignation or confirmation.

Maggie thinks, for the first time, that maybe she’s misjudged this situation. “You and… you and Supergirl?” The end of her sentence rises, almost like a question, because suddenly she isn’t so sure that Alex knows what she’s talking about. She isn’t so sure that Alex is following her train of thought, because Alex is looking at her like she’s got two heads and so maybe, possibly, Maggie’s made a mistake.

“Me and… what _about_ me and Supergirl?” Alex almost shouts.

“Have I read something wrong?” Maggie asks, suddenly feeling the simultaneous need to backtrack _and_ double down. “I was just trying to tell you that I support you and that I’ll back off. I respect your relationship. And also… well, I don’t exactly _want_ to piss off an invincible alien.”

Recognition finally dawns on Alex’s face and crashes over her expression. Maggie can practically _hear_ the thought _thunk_ into her head. “You think that I…” Alex shakes her head, incredulous, “that Supergirl and I… are…?” She trails off and pulls a face, like she can’t even stomach the words.

“Seeing each other?” Maggie ventures, and Alex pulls another face. (Maybe she’s misjudged this situation). She feels a selfish need to defend herself, though she isn’t sure exactly why. “I mean I guess. Although I’m not totally sure how you _date_ a superhero…” Alex opens her mouth to speak and Maggie holds up a hand, cutting her off quickly, “Please don’t tell me I don’t really want to imagine it.”

Alex stares at her for a long time, so long that Maggie begins to feel uncomfortably restless. She doesn’t know how to read Alex, right now. Usually Danvers is a goddamn open book (she really _is_ a terrible liar) but today… right now… Maggie can’t read her.

Alex rolls her eyes. “You’re such an idiot sometimes, you know that?” She huffs.

“What do you—?” Alex takes two rapid steps forward and grabs the back of Maggie’s neck, pulling her close and kissing her soundly. Maggie lets out a surprised noise that is immediately swallowed by Alex’s lips, and she sinks into the embrace.

Her heart leaps into her throat (for entirely different reasons, this time) and she feels heat rising in her cheeks.

Alex pulls away after a few long moments, a small smile teasing at her lips and her cheeks as flushed as Maggie’s feel.

“So… I’m guessing I was wrong about the Supergirl thing?” Maggie asks with a hitch in her voice.

Alex laughs and leans her forehead against Maggie’s. “You have _no idea_ how wrong you were.”

Maggie _should_ think about that more intensely, should spend more time considering the implications of that sentence, but then Alex bends down and kisses her again, and she finds that she really can’t think about anything at all.


End file.
